Film: Arrival (2016) Racism Disguised as ‘Sci-Fi’

This film quintessentially defines the Obama-era’s support of neo-Nazism in the Ukraine, and prepared the American public for rise of Donald Trump (who won the US Presidency on a ticket of xenophobia and racism). The 2016 film ‘Arrival’ (which has met with universal acclaim in the Western world, is rejected in Mainland China, Russia and Africa, as these three geographical areas are depicted as ‘inferior’ to the superior ‘White’ world of Eurocentric culture. This insular ‘naval gazing’ by the West is typical of its imperial and colonial past, and its a priori assumption that it – and it alone – possesses any culture worth having. What seems surprising on the surface is that the film is premised upon the book ‘Arrival’ penned by American-Chinese author Ted Chiang (姜峯楠 – Jiang Fengnan), who was born in New York, in 1967. However, a cursory investigation into his family background reveals that his parents supported the corrupt Nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-Shek prior to the 1949 Communist Revolution, and fled with the discredited remnants of that shattered movement as it invaded the island of Taiwan and took refuge there (protected by the US Navy). His book ‘Arrival’ is in fact an ‘anti-Communist’ tome cleverly disguised as ‘science fiction’. The problem Chiang has is trying to suggest that the ‘aliens’ communicate in a written language premised upon the roundel symbology prevalent within Chinese Ch’an Buddhism – whilst pursuing a pro-capitalist, and pro-Eurocentric agenda. A contradiction that Chiang (and the directors of the film) achieve with considerable success. China, Russia and Somalia are chosen by Chiang to be his ‘inferior’ counter-balances to his ‘superior’ USA (and by indication the renegade island of Taiwan). The anti-Chinese racism is palpable and the central theme of the book (and film) camouflaged by a plot that appears to evolve around the world attempting to communicate with 12 alien ships that arrive at key locations across the globe. As the Scientific Socialism of Karl Marx interprets politicised Judeo-Christian as the operating of a primitive and ‘inverted’ mind-set from a by-gone age (advocating ‘atheism’ as a consequence of the modem era), one of Chiang’s chapters is entitled ‘Hell is the Absence of God’ – an apparent allusion to Chinese Communist policy. What Chiang fails to understand, is that the Judeo-Christian tradition is historically irrelevant to the people of Mainland China, and has no place in its collective psyche. It is Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism that define Chinese spiritual culture – but Chiang probably has an inkling of this -as he ‘stole’ the culture of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism (which depicts the various stages of ‘enlightenment’ with roundel structures) and attempts to pass them off as his own creation. In the meantime, Chiang revels in portraying ‘White’ European culture as ‘superior’ (aided and abetted by African-American actor Forest Whittaker in the film), and Chinese culture as being the product of corruption and irrationality. The book and film are a masterpiece of Eurocentric racism – but in true missionary fashion – are created by a man whose own ancestry has been brutalised and oppressed by this very same racism he is perpetuating and supporting. The example of Ted Chiang should be studied very carefully, and an understanding gained of how people from the demeaned ethnicities can co-operate with their demeaners – and delude themselves into thinking that this exchange is both ‘equal’ and ‘logical’. Finally, in the UK at the moment, copies of the DVD of ‘Arrival’ are being sold with a ‘free’ copy of the book to ensure that the ‘sci-fi’ ordinance receive the ‘full’ racist message.